The Return of Ellie Black

A Novel

Emiko Jean

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Year: 2024
• eBook ISBN: 9781668023952
• Subtopic: Women in Fiction

A USA TODAY Bestseller | An NPR Best Book of 2024 | A Goodreads Best Thriller of 2024

In this “page-turning suspense novel, shrewd character study, and captivating mystery” (Stephen King) Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s life is turned upside down when she gets the call that Ellie Black, a girl who disappeared years earlier, has resurfaced in the woods of Washington state—but her reappearance leaves Chelsey with more questions than answers.

It’s been twenty years since Detective Chelsey Calhoun’s sister vanished when they were teenagers, and ever since she’s been searching: for signs, for closure, for other missing girls. But happy endings are rare in Chelsey’s line of work.

Then a glimmer: local teenager Ellie Black, who disappeared without a trace two years earlier, has been found alive in the woods of Washington state.

But something is not right with Ellie. She won’t say where she’s been, or who she’s protecting, and it’s up to Chelsey to find the answers. She needs to get to the bottom of what happened to Ellie: for herself, and for the memory of her sister, but mostly for the next girl who could be taken—and who, unlike Ellie, might never return.

The “haunting and evocative” debut thriller from New York Times bestselling author Emiko Jean, The Return of Ellie Black is both a feminist tour de force about the embers of hope that burn in the aftermath of tragedy and a “gripping psychological thriller” (The Seattle Times) that will shock you right up until the final page.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Prologue
• Chapter One
• Chapter Two
• Chapter I
• Chapter Three
• Chapter Four
• Chapter Five
• Chapter II
• Chapter Six
• Chapter Seven
• Chapter III
• Chapter Eight
• Chapter Nine
• Chapter Ten
• Chapter Eleven
• Chapter IV
• Chapter Twelve
• Chapter Thirteen
• Chapter V
• Chapter Fourteen
• Chapter Fifteen
• Chapter VI
• Chapter Sixteen
• Chapter Seventeen
• Chapter Eighteen
• Chapter VII
• Chapter Nineteen
• Chapter VIII
• Chapter Twenty
• Chapter Twenty-One
• Chapter Twenty-Two
• Chapter IX
• Chapter Twenty-Three
• Chapter Twenty-Four
• Chapter Twenty-Five
• Chapter Twenty-Six
• Chapter X
• Chapter Twenty-Seven
• Chapter XI
• Chapter Twenty-Eight
• Chapter Twenty-Nine
• Chapter XII
• Chapter Thirty
• Chapter Thirty-One
• Chapter Thirty-Two
• Chapter XIII
• Chapter Thirty-Three
• Chapter Thirty-Four
• Chapter Thirty-Five
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Copyright